


One Note, One Love

by midnightflame



Series: As Human as We Are [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Baseball, Baseball Player Shiro (Voltron), Bullying, Car Accidents, Denial of Feelings, Guitarist Keith (Voltron), Holding Hands, House Party, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Mild Language, Music, Musical References, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Prequel, Road Trips, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2019-10-08 10:18:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17384651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Keith has been shuttled around from foster home to foster home until Kolivan shows up one day offering him something more permanent.  What this means is transferring into Garrison High, where he first meets Takashi Shirogane, a.k.a. Shiro, the school's golden-boy shortstop, and all-around good guy.But Keith comes to find that Shiro isn't everything the legends say he is. He's more than all of that, and for the first time in his life, he feels like he's finally found home.[High school prequel toAs Seasons Shift]





	1. Prologue: Come As You Are

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm back here to complete this little cycle of a storyline! I hope this will explain some of the things that you all may have seen in Seasons, giving that this is the prequel (and the follow-up to Amaranthine's epilogue). This is where Shiro and Keith meet again, this is their happily ever after, but as those of you familiar with Seasons know, this is not where they get together. But it's where we start to see their relationship begin, where all that pining finds its roots. I'm honestly excited to show you guys this, to have a chance to sit down and get back to something that has always had my heart!
> 
> Thank you all for reading and indulging me. (And as always, you can find me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)!)

High school is shit. Don’t ever let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

Keith is completely convinced it’s the place where fake-it-till-you-make-it was born. Take James for example. The kid’s a complete asshole. Great grades, decent looks (though depending on who you ask you might hear the words god-among-men thrown around), a wanna-be star of junior varsity soccer, and the first one to call you out when you don’t fit into the mold. 

Or break it. 

And Keith? He likes the breaking part. Not for the act of breaking itself, but rather to know that he can surpass the expectations layered over him by the world because of everything he lacks. No _real_ family. A last name he pilfered from someone else. Too lanky in build. Never speaks up unless it’s to combat one statement or another. 

The bottom line? He’s simply not enough sunshine for all those high schools idolaters to bathe themselves in.

Fuck that. Seriously. 

It’s not like popularity lasts anyway. The moment they hit college, that’s out the door. They all become the same - low man on the totem pole, each with something to prove until the world at large eventually swallows them whole. 

Let’s see James swim in that ocean alone and make it. Then maybe they’ll talk about gods.

For now, though, Keith has to survive the last few months of his freshman year relatively unscathed. And he’s not doing too badly by his own opinion, which is the one that should matter at the end of it all. Right? 

Right. 

“Hey, Keith, still gearing up for the Black Parade?”

The question echoes down the hallway, chased by laughter.

“Naw, I think he’s looking for teen spirit!”

Keith rolls his shoulder and hikes his backpack up a little higher. Just gotta make it to the end, with the end, in this case, being a set of double doors that leads out to the sports fields and parking lot. He pauses, a bare half second’s worth, to glare at the group that had been drawing attention to his exit with their tortured word-plays on old songs. Before he can open his mouth, however, someone else does him the favor.

“I don’t know who said that but The Black Parade says more about death and existence than anything -”

“No one wants to hear you wax existential on MCR, Matt!” 

Turning his head, Keith catches sight of a girl leaning out of her locker and grinning. She’s tall (taller than him anyway), athletic, with a ponytail pulled as high as Mt. Everest on top of her head and plummeting dramatically down to her lower back. He doesn’t miss the flashes of blue and pink staining her hair, and idly wonders if he’s playing witness to some sort of school violation. The ‘Matt” in question stands on the opposite side of the hallway, a tired looking physics book held in his hand. He tips a worn corner in the girl’s direction.

“Yeah, we’re not having this conversation,” she chimes, expertly deflecting the invitation for a debate with complete and committed nonchalance. “Too many things to do, not enough time for geekery!” 

Keith doesn’t wait for the impending revolt to those words. He simply ducks beneath the textbook and continues on his way down the hall. 

“Good luck and good riddance!” 

The time of his life? Yeah, fucking right. 

And quite frankly, he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t paint his nails or line his eyes in kohl. Doesn’t flick off the masses as he stalks the hallways in direct defiance of his class schedule. He certainly doesn’t brood at some lunch table like a hell-spawned Doberman just waiting for the first throat that presents itself. He just eats. . .alone. Quietly. 

There’s nothing wrong with that. 

And yeah, there was that one time he was late to English, but he had still made it to class and sat through the majority of it without further disruption. Like most events that fall prey to rumors, however, the circumstances of that particular morning had been wildly inflated with half-truths and non-truths and the overall malice that can be high school kids with too much time on their hands. 

The only thing that’s really _iconic_ about him would have to his hoodie - the red one with the Puma label in black leaping across his chest. He wouldn’t call it his brand or anything; he’d just liked the cat and the color. Not that he’s told anyone as much. And it’s not like it gave him an automatic in with the athlete crowd either (he could have said the same thing about the Nikes). But, Keith does know it definitely should have ruled him out of the emo category.

“Emo-boy going the distance!”

Apparently, there are exceptions being made.

“Enough of that!”

Down at the other end of the hallway, Keith sees a woman with her head poking out of a classroom door. Principal Holt. She’s pretty cool, at least in Keith’s opinion, though vaguely terrifying. Kinda like how a bowl of soup can be when you don’t know entirely what’s been put into it. She’s never given him much trouble, save for a stern reminder about respecting his teacher’s time, but he’s heard the horror stories of student trips to her office. 

Keith assumes its nickname, Hell’s Hot Gate (or HHT for short), had been earned for a reason. But he also knows a few things about rumors. 

Suffice it to say, if you act like a decent human teenager and only test the boundaries of your youth in _appropriate_ ways, you shouldn’t have any real issues with her.

The hallway fills with the sounds of locker doors slamming, papers crunching, and the mutinous whisperings that will never be more than that - a whisper of mutiny. 

“Keith.” 

Oh no. Oh no, no, no. . .

Even the whispering falls to silence in the wake of Colleen Holt saying his name. There’s a knot of dread forming in his throat, spiked with panic, that he forces himself to swallow down. Painfully. More than anything now, he wants to pull the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and ghost through the crowd like he lacked all material form. A shadow-student, just here for the day and doomed to disappear at the final bell ring.

Straightening up his shoulders, he detours over to where she stands, her hand curled around the doorframe, her body blocking any entry into the classroom. She’s smiling though. If that meant anything. That sad sort of smile that tries to make itself sympathetic to some wounded cause, but her gaze is burning, emotions smoldering within it. She’s not looking at him when he first walks up to her, but at the crowd milling behind him. 

When he finally comes to a stop, both hands looped around the straps of his backpack, she turns her attention to him. Almost immediately, the fires in her eyes are doused, replaced by something warm, something kind. It makes him want to believe in her, or maybe just in something better than all of this. 

That maybe there’s someplace in this world that just simply doesn’t suck.

“You’re not listening to them, are you?” she asks, that honest brand of concern softening her tone. 

Keith. . .hates it. Not her for sounding like that, but him for needing something like it. This isn’t the only time he’s ever felt out of place in his own life, and he doesn’t think it will be the last given his track record, but to have one unshadowed moment of kindness is like a stray dog finding shelter from a storm. A temporary reprieve, maybe, but one that makes the world a little less daunting to exist in. 

He shrugs his shoulders, casts a glance down the hallway. “If they had anything worth saying maybe I would, but that’s not the case.”

She smiles again, the gesture a bit tighter around the edges. “I know coming into a new school can be daunting, Keith, but don’t let it get to you. I’d hate to see for you or your studies to suffer. You have real promise.”

He gets it. He really does, but what Keith hears is the quiet warning in her voice. _Don’t fall prey to your temper._ High school might be a bitch, but it doesn’t have teeth like your past does. One solid bite and your future could carry its scars forever. 

Does he believe Principal Holt wants the best for him? Yes.

Does she sound like most of the other adults in his life? Yes.

Does he like her any less for it? Not really.

But he doesn’t expect anyone else to understand. And maybe that’s on him.

When he doesn’t respond, the warmth slips back into her smile. She knocks her knuckles against his forehead lightly, causing him to reach up and rub at the spot like a cat unsettled by human touch. Despite his best efforts, he can’t stop the scowl from destroying the line of his lips. 

Principal Holt merely laughs it all off. “The music room’s open for the afternoon. It won’t be locked up for another hour at least.”

A peacetime offering. Keith stares at her through his bangs, but she’s already making her way back into the classroom. 

“Thanks. . .” he manages after a moment, well aware that the only one there to accept his gratitude is the propped open door with its faded number nine sticker staring dully back at him. 

He takes in a deep breath and turns back to the hallway. Most of it has cleared, though a few pockets of students linger around one open locker or another. All of them watch him as he leaves, though nothing further is said. It didn’t need to be though. Sometimes, you felt the unsaid like a muscle knotting in your back - tight, painful if you moved too carelessly, and unable to simply shake it out. 

Sometimes, the only way to get rid of all the unsaid you carried around with you was to have someone else work it out of you. 

Keith didn’t have anyone like that. But he did have his guitar, and he had a room to call his own back home. For some reason though, he takes a right turn at the end of the hallway. If he lingers, he knows he’ll miss his bus. Not that that has been any real deterrent to him. Home is a fifteen-minute walk away at most, and the route takes him past his favorite cafe. Which usually makes for a good excuse to miss the bus on most days. 

As long as he lets Kolivan know. 

The music room is at the end of the hall, the last classroom on the right, with windows that overlook the baseball fields. It’s barely used outside of classes themselves; the band tends to practice either by the football field or in the small auditorium that doubles as the drama club’s venue of choice. Occasionally, a student might take it upon themselves to practice solo in here, particularly if there’s some sort of competition coming up. 

To Keith’s knowledge, there aren’t any on the school calendars. So, as far as he’s concerned, he should be in the clear to -

His feet stop shuffling forward. His fingers spasm into fists only to be released seconds later. He swallows down a sudden puff of panic again, bewildered over the flash of emotion itself. Maybe he had simply been surprised when he had been so certain he would have some time to himself, something of his own. A chance to defuse.

But just when he thinks he’s resolved to head home, he finds himself moving forward again.

It’s the sound that draws him. Sharp, precise, flowing softly until it's cascading from the room and out into the hall.

Keith doesn’t know why it stops him, only that something inside of him resonates, every note sending vibrations throughout his cells until the whole of him is buzzing, right down to his very core.

It digs that deep into him.

He can’t shake that notion. And it’s been a hell of a day, doused with classes (half of which bore him) and social interactions that can’t really be called proper interactions as they mostly revolve around him being called out for having nothing (which he is aware of, but what foster kid doesn’t have that feeling kick them in the ass every once in a while, and that’s no matter how great of a home you come from). But people still eventually want something from him because he passes his classes with flying colors and can do “cool shit” like play the guitar.

Whoever said you get to define yourself in high school must have been talking shit or reminiscing about glory days that weren’t actually all that glorious, but hindsight made them seem so.

Keith doesn’t even know where to start, which is the first problem. He’s had more last names than he can count on his hand, and until Kolivan took him in, he didn’t actually know what a home was supposed to feel like.

He’s getting there. At least, he thinks he is.

He can’t shake that thought either as he slides open the door to the music room and spots the source that set off all his cellular components at once. But you know, that’s what he likes about music. It dives right into your soul and finds those pieces that belong with your heart.

Sitting on the bench is a boy Keith recognizes. Just not in this capacity.

He’s Takashi Shirogane. ‘Shiro’ for short. Keith always got the feeling that it wasn’t because Shiro felt that generous but because he was just that nice, and it was better than politely correcting someone every time they butchered your name like it was ground beef and not prime cut. He also happens to be the ever popular and rather charming power hitter of Garrison High’s baseball team.

The one that goes to nationals every year.

It doesn’t get more cliché than Shiro.

At least, that’s what Keith had thought until he saw his fingers flying across the piano keys with a precision that would make any artist weep. He doesn’t stop playing when Keith opens the door, nor does he stop when he shuts it and throws the room back into shadow. The shades are only partially drawn, and the sun isn’t hitting this side of the building, which makes for a watery sort of sunlight seeping into the room.

Shiro still stands out though.

“Was the music bothering you?”

Keith shakes his head. Apparently, his voice forgot its working set of chords and left to go retrieve a spare set.

Shiro laughs at that, and even that sound carries a melody. It strikes his soul and shakes a few more pieces worth remembering loose, like how warm human voices could be when they were full of genuine concern.

“Good,” Shiro says with a smile. He turns back to the song, which has faded into a soft lull of notes, gentle and enveloping. They make Keith think of beginnings.

Or maybe it’s starting over. Or that not everything ends.

Hope.

It makes Keith think of hope.

Shiro tips his head towards the open spot on the bench. “If you like it, I can show you how to play it. You’re that kid with the guitar, right? Someone said you knew piano as well.”

“How. . .how do you know anything about me?” Keith stammers. A blush lights up his cheeks like a grill with too much kerosene thrown over it. He’s pretty sure he’s roasting.

His ego is at least.

Even so, he steps closer to the piano and stares down at the beckoning spot beside Shiro.

“I’ve heard you playing. I might have even asked for a name.”

“Did you get one?”

“Keith.”

He sits down at that with a noncommittal hum. “And you’re Takashi Shirogane, a.k.a Shiro.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Shiro laughs. “How about just -”

“Shiro. Got it.” Keith can’t help the smile that takes over his mouth, just a bit cheeky.

But he likes the way it makes Shiro laugh again, the sound as warm and satisfying as pot pie and sending a tingle through him just like ginger ale. Shiro. . .he sounds a lot like a place you’d want to belong.

The music quiets down to a whisper, then fades out entirely as Shiro lifts his hands from the keys. “Do you know this piece?”

Keith shakes his head at that. “No. . .I haven’t really paid a lot of attention to the piano these last few years.”

Why is he telling Shiro this? Does it matter? Would Shiro even care? Does _he_ even care?

“Maybe I can spark your interest again.”

He says that with a smile that makes something flutter weirdly in Keith’s chest, like a butterfly that never got the memo on how to flap its wings with any semblance of grace. Keith has the distinct urge to kill it before it can do something else strange, like hiccup feelings he doesn’t understand or know how to name.

“That’s assuming a lot,” Keith mutters as he pokes at one of the keys. It bolts out a note, deep and tremorous.

“It’s just a suggestion. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Shiro says, following up Keith’s note with one of his own. It’s quieter, soothing.

It stirs the first budding of guilt awake within him. He gives his head another shake. “That song you were playing, does it have a name?”

A hum answers him, deep as the note he had played but soothing like the one Shiro had picked out. “It’s called Divenire.” And with that, Shiro begins playing it again, slowly so Keith can follow the movements of his hands. “It means _to become_.”

“That explains a lot,” Keith murmurs.

“What does?”

He blinks, realizing he hadn’t kept those words to himself. Glancing off to the side, Keith weighs his options. Choice one: he could get up and pretend like none of this happened. Choice two: say he meant nothing and sit awkwardly because he really likes this song and maybe he’s starting to think Shiro isn’t quite so bad himself. Or choice three: he could actually answer the question like he really, really wants to and hope to God or whatever is out there that took pity on people like him that Shiro wouldn’t find him a waste of time.

“The song,” Keith starts, tentatively. He digs the toe of his combat boot into the piano’s nearest leg like he might drill out a more appropriate answer. Nothing happens. “The song,” he begins again, “sounds just like that. Like starting.”

“Starting?”

Another nod as Keith brings his attention back to the way Shiro’s hands move across the keys. They’re. . .big. Not disproportionately so, though even as a junior Shiro is easily one of the tallest guys in his grade. Just.. .Keith is used to his own hands doing the things he directs them to do, and he’s never really bothered with anyone else’s hands and the things they were doing.

So, Shiro’s hands are big, and his smile is like the sunlit ocean, and he’s got this odd streak in him that makes him give impromptu piano lessons to the self-isolated and mostly contented with that lot in life. Keith likes his alone time.

Maybe though, he might like a little bit of Shiro’s time. For all his bulk and good nature, the guy isn’t all that intrusive.

“It makes me think things begin again, or that you get to become something more.”

“Something great?”

Keith offers Shiro a withering glance at that. “We’re in high school. And I’m not talking about greatness or whatever. . .I mean becoming.”

“Whole.”

A shiver cuts through him at that, and Keith finds himself staring up at Shiro like he’s just risen from the pyre and burst into brilliant flame all over again.

“Yeah, something like that. . .” he murmurs, wrestling with this fledgling sense of awe. Because just like that, Shiro had gotten it, and he wonders if that’s luck or intuition at play and not some sense of camaraderie building between them.

Chance is a shit thing to build a relationship on, and Keith would rather play his odds smartly.

Shiro smiles again, his eyes closing as if he’s simply soaking in the moment. Like being here, right now, with nothing more than a song and Keith, is worth everything in the world.

You know, those moments you don’t want to forget.

Keith doesn’t think he could forget the sight though. It’s as if the tension released Shiro in one small forgiving breath, and only after seeing it flee does Keith realize it had even been there at all. Fingers continue to course along the keys, swift and focused, pulling a quiet, persistent sense of life into each note as the song moves towards the end.

Shiro’s head bobs as the music starts to pick up again, strengthening with every press of a key. Then his eyes open, and it’s like the entirety of the universe opens up before him as the song takes flight.

“Do you hear this part?” Shiro whispers, his eyes bright as he looks at Keith. “This is the part where you get to defy fate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for starting this journey! Here are a few little after notes for you all:
> 
> As with Seasons, music is going to play a big part in this storyline as well, so here are a few links to some of the referenced songs in this prologue that I hope you all will enjoy!
> 
> [Nirvana - Come As You Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S24Fd49CjLY)  
> [My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade Album](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpJYQf5uJ4w&list=PLfyjY6W9kqO-U6Nx_GtTWhbs8v0iwTB0f%22)  
> [Nirvana - Teen Spirit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg)  
> [Green Day - Good Riddance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnQ8N1KacJc)  
> [Cake - The Distance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_HoMkkRHv8)  
> [Ludovico Einaudi - Divenire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8SkX9CSJQo)  
>  
> 
> And as I mentioned in my opening A/N this is all part of a bigger series, so if you would like to introduce or simply refresh yourself to this storyline, I have it all listed in chronological order below! (Side note: both 'And I will love you through uncertainty' and 'To the last syllable of recorded time' occur within Amaranthine's story so you may want to read those after Amaranthine.)
> 
>  
> 
> [Salvaged Lives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9485606/chapters/21463151)  
> [Homecoming](https://archiveofourown.org/series/625715)  
> [Die for You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9747317)  
> [In the Shadows I will Find You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10003955)  
> [Constellated](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12686736)  
> [And I will love you through uncertainty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10219364)  
> [To the last syllable of recorded time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10260110)  
> [Amaranthine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160347/chapters/27597045)  
> [As Seasons Shift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643853/chapters/21787559)


	2. Don't write yourself off yet

Meeting Takashi Shirogane did not go the way Keith had imagined it. Quite frankly, he had _never_ imagined it to begin with, though he has always been well aware of who the kid was and what exactly the school thought of him. 

Shiro is the sort of guy who is simply too good to be true. When it came to grades, he's at the top of his class. Rumor had it he had already achieved a perfect score on his SAT. (But we all know how Keith feels about rumors, so he had taken this one with a grain of salt, even if when he looked at the guy, he could easily believe it to be true.) He comes to school without a hair out of place, smile beaming and dressed like the Abercrombie catalog had been designed for him and not the other way around. Girls swoon for him in his baseball uniform; apparently, the gray of Garrison High had been “made for his eyes.” 

Whatever that meant. 

Shiro did have pretty eyes. Which is a thought Keith had stuffed down to the bottom of his backpack along with all the various school papers that would only see the light of day when necessity dictated it so (or Kolivan made him clean it out, which is a more regular occurrence than Keith cares for). 

People like Shiro. They flock to him. The natural born leader type, with charm enough to chase the clouds away.

And when you add in the fact that his father is some highly sought after pediatrician and his mother the epitome of elegance and grace, your life doesn’t get more exquisitely perfect than Takashi Shirogane’s. 

Now, with all of that being said, the only thing Keith _really_ knows about him is that he’s fucking fantastic at playing the piano and seems to feel music the same way that Keith does - running right through the energy matrix of his soul. Well, that and the eyes. . .and the easy way about him. From his smile to the way he drives. He still has that image in his head: Shiro’s hand moving effortlessly over the steering wheel like he was born to pilot something bigger, something greater than himself. 

Keith is still in awe of that - Shiro’s driving. He’s only had his official license for two weeks, though he got his learner’s permit when he was fifteen and a half. Long story short, as Shiro had told him, was that it had taken a bit of convincing to finally get his mother’s approval for it. So, in addition to everything else he had so far achieved in his short life, Shiro had also passed his driving test with flying colors. 

Even the parallel parking bit.

But Keith swears he could parallel park in his sleep. Not that the state or any other governing body needs to know that at the moment. That information remains between him and Kolivan, who is of the full belief that as soon as Keith turns sixteen this summer, they would waste no time getting him his permit. 

He’s not entirely convinced he needs it though, given how close his school is to both Kolivan’s house and the downtown district. And where else would he go? Maybe out to the mountains, but the idea of driving some three-odd hours to get there doesn’t feel feasible to him right now. Not that he couldn’t do it, but rather that. . .who would let him? Not by himself, at least. 

Maybe with someone like Shiro. Reliable. Dependable. Boring. 

Only, Shiro didn’t _feel_ boring to him. On paper, sure, maybe he is the poster child of the perfectly dull and flawless. But watching him play in the music room, Keith had gotten the distinct impression that there’s a hell of a lot more to Takashi Shirogane than his stuffed-to-the-brim college resume would have you believe. Keith doesn’t know how to describe it, least of all to himself. And he doesn’t want to make that effort, honestly. Not for some guy who was probably just treating him like a charity case.

Fuck, he wishes he could believe that. 

It would be easier if he had been just that - a charity case. Nothing more than a nice moment in both of their lives where Keith could convince himself that maybe not everything was utter shit, and Shiro could polish his already glowing self-confidence a little bit more.

No harm, no foul, right? As long as he kept to the reality of the situation, there should be nothing to prick his soul on. Like some screwed up version of Sleeping Beauty where instead of falling asleep for eternity he’d be left immobile yet alive and so painfully aware of the life passing him by because he wasn’t some glorious prince like Shiro.

The guy with everything. 

“You’re back late.”

Keith looks up from the kitchen counter, where he had just thrown his backpack. 

_You’re back late._ Spoken in that off-hand sort of manner that said if you didn’t have a good excuse expect to get your balls handed to you on a silver platter. And probably a few rights revoked along the way. 

But that had been something he had promised - to always let Kolivan know when he would be late and where he was planning to find himself during those wandering hours. He knows it has to do with his history, and other promises made on his behalf by Kolivan to the adoption agency. You don’t royally fuck up your chances in a few foster homes (whether your fault or not) without ending up with a few stipulations tacked onto your next one. 

The funny thing about this moment though? Kolivan doesn’t even look pissed. More curious than anything else, and Keith takes that as a compliment.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I got caught up. . .”

Kolivan lifts an eyebrow at him. Curious or not, it doesn’t stop him from stirring a pot of near-boiling water. 

“Caught up?”

A hum of agreement bubbles in Keith’s throat. Pushing his bookbag aside, he takes a seat at the counter and starts drumming his fingers across the gray granite. 

“In the music room.” 

Kolivan’s lips part for a soft _ah_. Seemingly satisfied, he sets about salting the water. Generously, Keith notices. He still keeps tapping out a rhythm over the countertop, his gaze now roaming about the kitchen. It’s then that he sees it - the open box of rigatoni next to the stove, the covered pot on a back burner, a handful of spice bottles, and several emptied cans of crushed tomatoes. 

Tonight’s menu - Italian. Tuning his senses into the various scents, Keith can also make out the faint hints of garlic coming from the oven. 

“Is this another one of those dishes from back in the day?”

Another eyebrow lift. “You mean when I worked as a line cook?”

Keith nods. His fingers have stopped drum-rolling across the countertop. Belatedly, he realizes he had been playing along with a song weaving its notes into the undercurrent of the kitchen’s sounds. 

Seven Nation Army. The White Stripes. 

Craning his head, Keith locates the source of the music on the other side of Kolivan, just behind the sink; a small speaker, life-sparking red blaring across its sides and no bigger than his palm, sits on the windowsill that overlooks the backyard. 

The song is another relic of Kolivan’s past, but one Keith has become rather fond of for various reasons. And that’s outside of the fact that it’s one of the best rock anthems of more recent history (Keith was barely capable of walking when the song first exploded across the airwaves). The moment those first few notes dropped though, you knew you were in for a hell of a ride. He likes Kolivan’s taste in music. . .but whether that’s due to circumstances over the last year fostering that love or something that had always been innate to him, Keith doesn’t know.

He doesn’t really want to overthink that idea either. Not for all that it could mean. 

One didn’t invite the shadows of their own mind to come dancing with them, and that’s what pondering such a topic felt like to Keith. Asking all the dark denizens of his unknown to come out and play. 

“That was the Shirogane boy just now, wasn’t it?"

Keith’s gaze stills over his hands as if contemplating a variety of answers within his palm while feeling satisfied with none of them. So, he nods. Just nods. 

But fancy that - even Kolivan knows who Shiro is! At this rate, even the Pope probably knows about him. Keith bites back the scowl he wants to make and instead tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling. Maybe Shiro _was_ heaven-sent. Some angelic demi-being too good for this world and gifted to the earth to show a few measly mortals the better path in life. 

That gilded, guaranteed righteous path that tried to spin saints out of suburbia and polish the smog-crusted halos of those lost to the cities darker charms. 

Maybe Shiro was sent to test the devil’s waters. 

Keith swallows. “Yeah. . .he uhh. . .he gave me a ride back from school.”

With a grunt, Kolivan shakes the box of dried pasta. Keith winces against the sound. 

“Is he a friend?”

If he didn’t know any better (and maybe he honestly doesn’t), Keith could swear that Kolivan almost sounded hopeful. Then again, trying to decipher emotion in Kolivan’s voice is like trying to tell the difference between ‘big apple red’ and ‘candy apple red.’ 

With a shake of his head, Keith replies, “Not really. No. . .I just happened to find him in the music room and he offered to take me home since I missed the bus." A pause. "He was playing the piano.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“A lot of people say a lot of things.”

“Yeah. . .yeah. . .and I need to decide for myself what’s true or not.”

Knowledge or death. Isn't that the tattoo Kolivan had across his back? 

He had only seen it once, last summer when they had stopped for a few days at this lake somewhere in Colorado. Kolivan had rented out a small cabin there, and in an effort to bring Keith out (or this is what he had suspected at the time but he now thinks that Kolivan might have liked the thrill of it - of jumping into the unknown if only to see what he could find), had gone diving off the dock. When he had surfaced, the letters were marching in black across his upper back. Just a little water and everything Kolivan's T-shirt had been hiding was revealed to the world. Keith decided he didn't want to ask about them. 

They reminded him too much of gravestones. Sharp, clean corners, dark as shadows, haunting against an otherwise pristine canvas of skin. 

Kolivan grunts. “I’m saying he’s a good kid.”

And that’s the thing: Keith knows that Shiro is. He had felt it the moment he had entered the music room and laid eyes on him. Shiro is the genuine deal, that honest attempt at making a decent life not just for himself but for those around him. He’s not being nice for the accolades, and that’s honestly the hardest thing to accept about him.

That someone could be nice simply because it’s the better thing to do. 

What Keith knows about being nice is that it costs you more than they say it does. The world just likes to pretend that it doesn’t, and it certainly doesn’t reward _nice_ the same way it rewards the cheaters and the scammers, the liars and the pretenders. You know, those people that always seem to get farther in life than the honest-working adherents of _nice_. Besides, it’s not like a wolf pack survived by asking an elk whether or not it wanted to be dinner. 

Shiro is just the fucking anomaly. He’s the real monster.

And his truth terrifies Keith in a way that he is loathe to admit.

“Clean up. Dinner will be ready in fifteen.”

Keith nods again and slides himself off the seat. In the background, Dave Grohl sings about resistance. Grabbing his backpack, Keith shrugs off the lyrics, and with them, any last thoughts of Shiro. 

“I’ll be down in fifteen.”

*

The weekend passed with the unremarkable cadence that tends to make up the day-to-day of most people’s lives. Keith slept in. He messed around on his guitar, cleaned his room, ate lunch by himself when Kolivan got called into analyze something on Saturday but helped him make dinner that evening. He even got a head start on his homework, and upon completing Wuthering Heights, decided everyone was a bunch of selfish assholes who had only themselves to blame for their unhappiness, which did not make for a good report basis. Or maybe it did. A love story of self-love and self-sabotage.

He might use it for a song.

One day.

Keith likes his weekends though, even if they are pretty set in their routines. Kolivan popping out on him is nothing new, though it had only started once they had settled down here. While he doesn’t completely understand _what_ it is that Kolivan does, he gets that it’s important, that a lot of people rely upon him, and that his opinion is highly trusted by the people who blow up his phone with messages on a Saturday afternoon like the world might be ending. Even if Kolivan consistently tells him he’s no longer tied to the military and its whims. 

That might be true, but Keith learned long ago that some things simply didn’t leave you just because you dropped a title or left a job or moved to a new town. Some things ingrained themselves so deeply inside of you that trying to extricate them from you was no different than trying to pull the bones from your body with telekinetic force. 

And Keith is no gifted mutant. 

But he likes his weekends. Because they are _his_ , and they carry freedom in their hours even if certain expectations still sit within them - like washing dishes or finishing his homework. They don’t come with the pressure of avoiding traps set by high school egos looking to inflate themselves further. You couldn’t even answer a question right in class, when called upon by the teacher no less, without it being subject to potential ridicule. 

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The moment that bell rings on Friday though, Keith knows he can breathe, that he can be a little more of himself and a little less of what the world wants to make of him. 

Which makes Monday mornings the Cerberus of his week.

*

“Hey, Keith!”

_Fuck._

He’s two steps through the door when that greeting rings out. Clear and unavoidable, echoing across the raging river that is the influx of students coming into Garrison High first thing in the morning. In the next five seconds, he needs to decide whether he’s going to turn and acknowledge Shiro or continue walking like it’s some mistake. Surely there’s another Keith somewhere in this mess of bodies and conversation with his name?

Keith tugs on the shoulder straps of his backpack, flicks a glance in Shiro’s direction, and keeps moving. Laughter bubbles up amongst the crowd of juniors that had been hanging around Shiro. A few of them he recognized: Lotor, the crown prince of their grade and set-to-be captain of their state-reigning football team; Acxa, student body vice president and reportedly on-again-off-again girlfriend of Lotor; the tall blond from yesterday whose name continues to escape him for the sole reason of it not being important to him; and some other no-name that is equally as tall but with a level of butch that puts even Shiro’s physique to shame. Keith vaguely recalls her as someone special to the track-and-field crowd, but even they seem to whisper her name rather than boldly declare it with some level of importance. That may have something to do with the menacing snarl that seems to consistently snag her lips.

People that Keith would never deal with on a daily basis if he had the choice. The popular crowd had never been his thing, and he had never wanted it to be. Too much noise, too much built on appearance, and not enough touch with reality. At least, with the things that really made up this world and not the charmed life every high-schooler wanted for themselves. 

Weaving his way through the crowd, he thinks he’s made it out his faux-pas (because one simply did not ignore Takashi Shirogane without some sort of societal reprisal) when Shiro jostles into place next to him. He’s smiling, like Keith blowing him off didn’t matter.

Maybe he hadn’t taken the cue.

Maybe the real magic of Takashi Shirogane is that he doesn’t know how to take a hint.

Keith exhales as he pulls to a stop before his locker. 

“605, huh?” Shiro says with a rap of his knuckles against the door. Beside him, space had been made, like that one moment when thunderclouds give way to sunshine. That’s the effect Shiro had on the people around him; without complaint, they move to accommodate him. A natural part of the landscape rather than some abnormality disturbing it. 

“That’s what it says. . .” Keith replies. 

Who fucking reads off someone's locker number like it's a worthwhile piece of information and not some random assignment that had about as much meaning to it as the number of ants crossing over the sidewalk? He tries his best not to roll his eyes.

“Did you have a good weekend?”

Are they. . .is this a conversation? Or some attempt to be one? Keith glances down at his watch. Class starts in five minutes, which means he has two minutes to grab his shit before he has to head upstairs. And that’s just another way of saying he potentially has two minutes here trapped in conversation with Shiro. 

With a disinterested flick of his gaze toward Shiro (and yes, he still has nice eyes, and Keith mentally curses himself for considering that thought a viable one after convincing himself of all the reasons why it isn’t since their last meeting), he starts messing with the combination lock on his door. 

“The same as always.”

“Does that make it a good one?”

“I guess. . .”

“Good!” Shiro laughs, and it sounds like sun-warmed honey. 

Keith hates it. He hates this boy that plays piano like his soul craves it. He hates the way Shiro’s laugh makes him ache because it sounds genuine and not like some mockery of friendliness trying to set him up for a fall later on. He hates his gorgeous eyes and his stunning smile. He hates the fact that everyone loves him when there’s probably so much more to the guy than everything they claim to love him for.

“We should play together again.”

He hates how badly he wants to do that. To sit there beside Shiro as they work their way through a song and all the variations they can think to put on it. 

Keith hates the fact that he knows he has no reason to hate Shiro at all. 

He's a good kid. As Kolivan had said. 

“Yeah. . .” he mumbles as his lock finally frees itself and nearly divebombs down to the floor in the process.

It’s Shiro who swoops in and catches it. His hand practically wraps around Keith’s, whose index finger tenuously holds onto the padlock by its latch. 

Shiro smiles as a quiet _Careful there_ slips past his lips in a voice that has no right to be that soft and focused. This isn’t being thrown into someone’s personal spotlight. It’s finding the rest of the world fading out of existence, a condensing down of existence to just two people. The ones who matter. He recognizes that whisper for what it is though - not drawing attention to what had almost happened. 

“You got it?” Shiro asks.

A nod as Keith exhales. He’s surprised to find himself shaking, just a bare tremor that touches his breath, but something that shouldn’t exist. It’s not like his padlock would have shattered, and it’s not like he hasn’t had his fair share of undue attention on him before. But the moment his eyes meet Shiro’s there’s that little earthquake rocking his body and unsettling all his thoughts. Keith hears crashing. Nothing valuable, but something is shaken loose inside of him. 

Set free. Maybe that's what had really happened just then. Whether he’ll ever find it again, he doesn't know. The better question may be whether he should go looking for it at all. 

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Keith answers, just as quiet as Shiro had been. He takes the lock from Shiro’s hand and tries not to think about the warmth against his skin or the callouses on Shiro’s palm or the all too gentle manner of his touch.

“So, about playing together again. . .”

He sounds hopeful. Beautifully, honestly hopeful. When Keith doesn’t answer right away, Shiro clears his throat, runs a hand through his dark hair, and starts to blush. It reminds Keith of the first brush of dawn along the horizon, a really faint rose-flecked flame challenging the darkness.

“I’m not. . .” he starts, only to stop when Keith meets his gaze directly again. “It’s just that I really liked it.”

Maybe this is the real problem with Takashi Shirogane - he’s shameless and honest and the worst sort of beautiful on the planet. 

And he’s standing there, leaning against locker 604, with this boyish smile on his lips that looks like it might drop into disappointment the minute Keith tells him no. 

“Sure.” 

Shiro stands a little straighter. His forearm slides down the locker door a few inches before he seems to remember himself. When he licks his lips, Keith opens his locker with unnecessary hurry and effectively screens Shiro out. 

“But I’m not hanging around for your practice to finish just so you can drive me home.”

That was the real reason he had been late getting back last Friday. Not because he had spent all afternoon playing piano with Shiro. That had actually only lasted for about thirty minutes before Shiro had rather suddenly jolted upright, pushing the bench with Keith still seated on it away from the piano. Keith’s hands had crashed down over the keys with a deafening screech of notes. Somewhere amidst their dying echoes, Shiro had muttered apologies and talk of baseball practice about to start. Keith hadn’t completely understood but had found himself promising to wait until Shiro was done.

Two hours later. 

Wrapping his hand around the locker door, Shiro peers down at Keith. He’s grinning. Bright, effusive, undaunted. You’d think Keith had just told him he’d earned a spot on the Yankees' starting line-up.

“I don’t mind driving you home.”

“I mind the waiting.”

“Twenty minutes then! As soon as school ends.”

Is it worth it? Just twenty minutes of playing with the only other kid in this school who has shown any interest in sharing music with him? 

Keith drags out his biology book along with a few notebooks and stuffs them into his bag. 

“Twenty minutes,” he says, not nearly as enthused as Shiro seems to be. Even if his heart is fluttering about like a hummingbird drunk on dreams.

Shiro knocks on his locker door, the smallest little victory pump, and takes a step back. “We’ll pick up where we left off!”

And with that, almost as if afraid Keith would back out on him, Shiro spins about on heel and returns to his own locker. There’s still a crowd milling about it, and Keith doesn’t miss the obvious questions getting launched, probably about this strange little interaction with a no-name freshman of ill-repute. 

Keith slams his locker shut, a metallic ringing reverberating in its wake. Just in time for the first bell. He places the lock back on it with a curse muttered under breath and fumbles to shoulder his bookbag once more. As soon as he turns to head down the hallway, Shiro passes by, surrounded by the people Keith supposes are his friends, all of them giving him the once-over as they walk past him. 

But it’s Shiro who pauses, much to Keith’s chagrin, and calls out, “Twenty minutes! Don't forget!”

No. Takashi Shirogane is not some wonder boy who can do no wrong. He’s a goddamn monster, and Keith has just agreed to an afternoon - _part_ of an afternoon - alone in his presence once again. 

He only hopes he’ll make it out alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back and thank you for reading this next chapter! As before there are a few music references so I have them here for you as well:
> 
> "Don't write yourself off yet" comes from [Jimmy Eat World - The Middle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsxPW6i3pM)  
> [ The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J2QdDbelmY)  
> Dave Grohl is the lead singer of the Food Fighters and [this song here ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_L4Rixya64) is the one being referenced to there!
> 
> And if you remember from As Seasons Shift, you may recall Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet being part of the theme in that story. For this one, you may recognize a part of this chapter modeled after Ten Things I Hate About You, which is based on Taming of the Shrew! 
> 
> As always, if you enjoyed this so far leave me a note and come find me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)!


	3. Don't sell your heart

Shiro is waiting for him in the music room. Sitting there as he had before, with his hands moving seamlessly over the keys, pulling forth a song that hits upon some long-drowned memory of Keith’s. Something he had heard before but had no name for, just the faint echoes of remembrance. 

Music is an odd thing like that, much like scent or taste. To think that a few notes could evoke some buried emotion within him, enough feeling to make Keith want to dig and dig until he uncovered where its heart still beats. 

Then, maybe, he could give it a name. 

He drops his bookbag beside the door. Shiro keeps playing. But there’s no hiding the way a smile curves his mouth or the brief flick of a glance to where he stands, and for some reason, it makes Keith feel as if he’s been found out. Even though he had done nothing at all to hide his presence. The none-too-graceful close of the door, the dead-body drop of his backpack, the scuffing of his sneakers against the floor. 

He’s staring at it now - the floor. They’re all the same. Those perfectly square vinyl tiles, white flecked with various shades of gray. Everything fitting into place. They’ve lost the high luster they had at the beginning of the school year, but he knows once classes let out for summer, the building will have its revamp, looking to show off its best side for the incoming freshmen. Because that’s what it’s really all about - the ones who haven’t experienced the place yet. 

Everyone else? They knew what they were getting into. 

“Did you come here just to stand there?”

Shiro’s voice is low, respecting the notes he’s playing, but still frustratingly teasing in its tone. Keith presses his tongue against the backs of his front teeth and lifts his gaze from the floor. It’s not that the teasing itself bothered him, or the familiarity taking such a tone could imply, but rather, the fact that he didn’t dislike it. 

Remember? Shiro has big hands, and nice eyes, and a voice that makes him feel like he could find home at any time. 

With a click of his tongue, Keith tugs up the left sleeve of his hoodie and starts walking toward the piano bench. “You’re not playing Divenire.”

“You remembered the name!”

That. . . _that_ right there is genuine surprise. The smile that follows it would have put the sun to shame. 

But how could he have forgotten that name? Or the song itself with its soul-charging notes? 

How could he have forgotten that one moment when it felt like maybe he had a chance in this world, and it all started with Takashi Shirogane? 

“You told it to me,” Keith says, hoping the shrug he gives will send the memory of yesterday afternoon tumbling down his back with it. “Only an idiot would forget.”

“There must be a lot of idiots in the world then,” Shiro laughs. 

“Are you one of them?”

The smile Shiro had been wearing dresses down, less bright, more confused. He looks at his hands, now playing the last few notes of that nameless song over and over. 

For a moment, Keith regrets ever speaking to Shiro. Because inevitably the fuck-up comes, and if his life has shown him anything, it’s that the fuck-ups have far-reaching repercussions. They’re like the residual shrapnel that embeds itself after the blast, always hurting someone else. Severing what might have been, changing the courses of lives, and -

“Sometimes,” Shiro replies. 

A single word, and it’s like the boy beside him had torn open a wound Keith had forgotten he had ever had. 

“I’m not perfect, you know,” he continues, glancing over at Keith. His fingers glide over the keys, slower, heavier. Still playing the same song, but with a completely different emotion guiding its sound. Keith feels it the way an ocean wave pulls you under. The world’s reminder of just how big, how deep, how powerful it can be.

And then, there are people like Takashi Shirogane. 

Keith swallows, steadies his breath. He reaches out to ghost his fingers over the keys, mimicking the ones Shiro had been playing in that continuous loop of notes. “It’s just weird, you know. . .” 

“What is?” Shiro asks.

“This,” Keith answers. He makes a vague gesture over the keys with his hand, and in doing so, realizes just how lame he actually is. Look at him, alone with his high school’s king or prince. . .some form of royalty at least. (He had never really known who sat on top of that particular chain when it came to Shiro and Lotor, and quite frankly, none of it had mattered to him. Except now for some reason.) His knuckles brush against one of the black keys, eliciting a sound all wrong for the moment. Or at least, for the image of Shiro. “Hanging out with me. Don’t juniors usually stick to themselves?”

“I’m pretty sure we get to be friends with whoever we want to be.”

“Huh. So, we’re friends now?” There’s no stopping the scoff that drags that notion right over the gravel. 

Friendship. As if it could be that simple - _hey, hi, I see you like something I do. . ._ People treated the term _friend_ like it was the latest fad accessory. One minute you’re there, irreplaceable. The next minute just gone. 

No one really understood the human cost of calling someone a friend. 

“I’d like to be. . .” Shiro says. All without pulling his gaze away from the piano keys and the mindless roving of Keith’s fingers over them.

That’s it. Sincerity should be a crime, Keith decides at that moment. Especially when it sounds the way it does dropping from Shiro’s mouth. All heart-warmed hope and boyish innocence. That’s the sort of honesty you have to take at face value, because the deeper you tried to dig into it, looking for the lies that surely must have existed beneath it, the more you found out just how deep that sincerity was ingrained. 

“You know who I am, don’t you?” he snipes at the other boy as he withdraws his hand from the piano keys.

Shiro still keeps playing. That’s all he does for a moment that seems to threaten to fall into forever until finally, he sighs. He follows it with a laugh and turns his gaze on Keith. 

“No, I don’t. And that’s why I’d like to try and be friends with you, Keith.”

You know those moments that inevitably come in every war movie ever made where the whole scene starts to slow down, and it’s like someone went and vacuumed out all the sound? The explosion hits, then BAM! and it’s all slow motion impact from there. That’s how he felt - like someone had just blasted a hole the size of a tank right beside him, and he’s left sitting there trying to figure out whether or not he’s lucky to be alive. 

“Besides,” Shiro says, “you’re the only one to ever remember the name of that song. Aside from Matt, but I swear he’s part cyborg the way he seems to remember every little thing said to him.”

Keith blinks. He looks at the piano keys, the black nestled between the white, and the way Shiro just keeps plugging away at the same few notes as though his fingers had gotten snagged on them. And then, he erupts with laughter.

Loud, awful laughter. Nestled somewhere in it all, his heart aches in a way that tells him he’s going to have to examine this moment later, but for right now, he had the right to feel. 

Whatever it is he’s currently feeling.

Shiro has finally stopped playing the piano. He’s turned on the bench, studying Keith as though he had just morphed into some local cryptid. Strange, bewildering, maybe even beautiful if that dorky smile on his face has anything to say. 

And he’s definitely not afraid.

“You really are an idiot,” Keith manages to mutter through the death throes of his laughter. The blush on Shiro’s cheeks is well worth whatever self-deprecation will hit him later on tonight. Brushing the back of his hand against his right eye, Keith takes a breath and reaches out for the piano again. “Think you can teach me that song in the next ten minutes?”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Shiro asks as he shifts himself back around on the bench and places his hands over the keys. 

“You actually want to try and be friends with me. So, yeah, I do,” Keith answers. 

Huffing out, Shiro starts up the song he had been playing from the beginning. “Is that such a bad thing?”

Keith watches as Shiro’s fingers move, smooth as meltwater, memorizing not just the notes they hit upon but the way Shiro’s hand spans across them, covering more ground than his own hands ever could. 

“Isn’t that for you to decide?” 

“I think you get a say in the matter too.”

That’s how friendship is supposed to work. Real friendship. Two people mutually agreeing to enter into this interpersonal relationship all based on the want to actually be around one another. Not a business transaction. Not a lover’s deal. Just that human need to be in the presence of someone who maybe might just get a little bit of who you are. . .and wasn’t afraid of it. His hands position themselves over the keys, echoing Shiro’s set-up further down. 

“All right. If we’re not playing Divenire, then what are we playing today?” Keith asks.

It’s about as close to signing the friend contract as he would ever get. No spit-soaked palms or blood-brother exchanges here. He’s agreeing to try, not signing away his life to Shiro. 

“Atlas.”

“Atlas?”

“Yeah. You know. . .by Coldplay. . .?”

Again, nothing more than a vague recollection, a song he had heard at one point but never took entirely to heart. And maybe that idea manifested in some form because Shiro starts playing again, only this time, he’s humming along and then, softly, the lyrics. 

So, Takashi Shirogane has big hands, and beautiful gray eyes, and a voice that could sink right down into your soul. And like a ghost that had found its favored haunting ground, Keith doesn’t think he’ll ever be free of this memory.

** 

If there’s one thing going for him right now, it’s the breeze. Just cool enough to make sitting out here bearable. Shouts cross the baseball diamond just about as often as the baseballs themselves, but it’s only when Keith catches Shiro’s voice that he bothers to look up from his notebook. He’s supposed to be working on his biology homework. Figuring out the Krebs cycle, and who converts to what and how the whole cycle is not only necessary but put a wrench in it somewhere, and it becomes a hell of a lot less efficient. Stop the cycle completely, and all the life associated with it stops as well. 

_Sometimes the wire  
Must tense for the note_

Instead, he’s been scribbling across the pages, looping lines over and over again, just as they had when Shiro had played them only an hour before. It had taken no more than a minute to find the song and its subsequent lyrics on his phone. Keith read them as though they were a siren’s song, unable to keep himself from tracing the words with his gaze until the lyrics synced up with the music he still had playing in his head. 

Maybe that makes him obsessive. 

It had been called a bad habit of his, by someone he would now rather forget. But like most bad memories, they have this horrid habit of etching themselves into the walls your thoughts regularly have to walk. He couldn’t help it though - once he got attached to something, it’s like it started to claim some part of him. 

That’s how this whole music thing started in the first place. Once a song got into his head, his fingers couldn’t help but carry out the rhythm. Whether on the bus, while studying, any idle moment found his hands occupied by it. That same someone had likened it to nail-biting or hair-plucking, the sign of a restless soul that couldn’t accept home. 

Keith never saw it that way. He still doesn’t. Then Kolivan gave him a guitar. . .

_Caught in the fire  
We're about to explode_

“Anyone ever tell you you have the neatest handwriting for a guy?”

Shadow consumes his notebook. Closing his eyes, Keith takes in a breath and counts backward from five. When he opens his eyes, Shiro is diving into the dirt between second and third base, and in the aftermath of dust flying up around him, the dugout on the far side of the field erupts into cheers. He’s grinning, his face sweat-slicked, his right cheek streaked with dirt. As the third baseman reaches his hand out to help Shiro up, Keith finally looks over at the person who had infiltrated his personal perimeter.

Matt. 

Everyone knows Matt, if only because his mother is the principal. And yet it doesn’t stop most people from ragging on him for any variety of reasons. Which, as far as Keith has been able to tell, usually has to do with Matt’s retorts to conversations he hadn’t been invited into but felt the need to interject in if only on behalf of the truth. 

Most of the time Matt was right. And that usually doesn’t make you popular. At least, it doesn't when being right made fools of everyone else.

Yet, somehow, Matt still manages to make it out all right. Keith doesn’t know if he is just that oblivious to all the teasing or if he simply doesn’t care about it. 

He also suspects that having Takashi Shirogane as your purported best friend helps with that. It’s rather difficult to feel too sorry for yourself when Mr. Popular himself considers you good company. Or maybe Shiro just likes collecting the oddballs, if their recent conversation was anything to go by. 

Friends and all that bullshit. 

Which probably makes Keith the real idiot in all of this for thinking Shiro might really be the genuine deal. 

“Considering we’ve never talked, that’s pretty fucking creepy to open up with,” Keith says as he tips his head back and meets Matt’s stare with a defiant one of his own.

Matt’s lips purse together, his brow scrunches. After another moment, where the affront seems to have been considered, studied from every possible angle like some alien energy source with all the potential to save a dying planet or destroy it, Matt finally nods his head.

Destruction not imminent. 

“Fair enough. But you still have the cleanest handwriting I’ve seen of any guy in this school. Not to mention it makes Pidge’s look like some lost civilization’s script.”

Without asking, he plops down beside Keith. His backpack drops beside him, a beat-up thing with a small hole just beside the zipper. The paint splatter across it doesn’t look intentional, but it reminds Keith of various starscapes, brilliant white pinpoints illuminating the blackness. 

He actually sort of likes it. Makes him think someone managed to tailor the chaos and the infinite, working it into something manageable. Useful. 

Contained, but never losing the beauty of its nature.

“Who's Pidge?”

Matt turns to him, placing a hand over his heart, and gasps. “You mean you have no idea who my darling speck of a sibling is? Pidge is only the greatest, most annoying, yet stunningly brilliant little sister there could ever be!” 

When Keith doesn’t react, merely stares at the spectacle before him, Matt sighs. “Shiro never told me of this travesty. . .”

“It’s not like I know everyone in this school,” Keith mutters. The need to defend himself sparks hot as molten steel, and he’s loathed to admit it has to do with the fact that Shiro has apparently talked to his best friend about him. 

“Oh, she’s not in this school. Yet.”

Lips parted, Keith continues to stare at Matt. He can still hear the calls from the baseball players, with Shiro’s voice rising above all the rest. To the sound of a bat cracking, Keith finally explodes.

“Then how the hell would I even know about her?!”

This time, it’s Matt who is staring at him like he had just admitted to shooting the sun out of the sky, casting the world into eternal, non-negotiable darkness. “Do you speak to Shiro with that mouth?” 

Confusion obliterates frustration. Keith feels like someone went and stopped time on him. “What has that got to do with this?”

“I mean I’m just saying a good wholesome boy like that hearing such devastation. . .”

“It’s _your_ sister. Not his.”

“We’re still family though!”

Wait. _What?_ Keith furrows his brow. “Are you guys related or something?”

Is that why Shiro actually hung out with him? It would explain so -

“Oh no! He’s like Godzilla stock, and we’re more like Mario Kart stuff. . .”

His head is starting to hurt. That low-level drumming that starts when the world as you know it begins to fracture. Kind of like Alice hitting the floor after that tumble down the rabbit’s hole. Everything goes to nonsense, and it turns out that your reality is the one that is the most nonsensical of all. 

“What does that even mean?!” Keith blurts out, exasperation finally getting the better of him. 

Again, Matt simply looks at him like he’s the one losing his grip on reality. He lifts an eyebrow at Keith, head tilted, searching his face for some trace of. . .fuck if Keith knows honestly! An answer? The key to the fifth dimension? He’s looking for something and seemingly not finding it, he reaches out to place his palm briefly against Keith’s forehead, then mutters something about there being no fever. 

No patient zero here, just an egregious breach of personal space yet again. Keith is surprised he didn’t somersault out of the way of that touch, but surprise has a weird way of deadening your limbs sometimes. So, he merely sits there, dumbfounded. 

“It means we’re family, just not like blood-related. _Obviously_. What with his family being from Japan, and while Pidge and I are American, we’re really of Roman ancestry if you want to take it that far back. . .” A pause as Matt scratches at his cheek. “Well, Shiro is also American since he was born here. . .But you’ve seen the size of him, so honestly, there’s probably some mutant Godzilla gene involved, and by next year, he’ll be king of the monsters, by which I mean us and the school at large. . .”

“You do know Mario Kart is also Japanese. . .” 

Matt groans. “Yes, technically that is true. But we’re all monsters in some way.”

Keith has nothing to add to that because there’s an undeniable truth in that statement. He couldn’t refute it, no more than he could refute the fact that if you cut him, he would bleed and it would be red. The mark of being human. 

“So, Shiro’s a monster, huh?” 

For a long moment, too long to feel comfortable in, Matt just looks at him. Keith knows there are wheels turning, giving him the distinct impression he’s some sort of science experiment to be studied in Matt’s eyes. Not the short-term sort either, but rather, the ones that run on for months and months. The evolutionary ones. The kind of experiments that give you a better understanding of yourself as much as the subject being studied. Then, suddenly, it’s like someone doused the light in Matt’s gaze. He blinks and turns his attention out to the field, where Shiro is tapping his toes against the ground, knocking the dirt from his cleats. 

“He’s one. Just not the kind of monster you need to be afraid of. . .” Matt says, his voice that unbreakable brand of solid that tells you to not bother with trying to deny what had just been spoken. There are simply some basic facts in the world, and this is one of them. “I think he scares himself more than anyone else. Which means he’d be an absolutely terrible vampire. Or werewolf for that matter. . .too much human never makes for a good monster.”

Keith digs his tongue into the tip of his canine tooth. “The real monsters are the ones who know what too much human is. . .”

With a shake of his head, Matt sets his palms against the ground behind him and leans back into them. “That’s not true. The real monsters are the ones who know just how much human they need without losing the monstrosity of what they really are.” 

_Carry your world  
I'll carry your world…_

“You got a thing for monsters or something?” Keith asks, unable to keep the edge of his smirk from cutting into his words. Like the only way to make any of this acceptable is to make some sort of joke of it. Pluck out its fangs, lose the fear of its bite. During it all, he’s been mindlessly running his pen over the song’s chorus, first in black ink, then in red, until the colors have become so tangled up now that he can’t follow a line of black without running to a continuation in red. 

“It keeps the imagination alive,” Matt replies with a laugh. “I mean, think about it - monsters, aliens, local legends and myths. . .it’s like anything else we do, always looking for the impossible, the improbable, and sometimes, we get lucky and stumble upon some inevitable truth we just didn’t have the means to see clearly yet.” As he speaks, his legs start to bounce, stretched out as they are before him now, and his index fingers begin digging into the earth. All of it turning Matt into some thrumming hive of energy just waiting to explode. And then he does. “And it’s that truth that goes and changes everything we’ve ever known! It opens all new worlds to us!”

“Yep. Just a revolution waiting to happen. . .” Keith stops tracing over the lyrics when he hears Shiro shouting across the field. He’s got a commanding tone when he wants to use it, which doesn’t appear to be often. Then again, this is the first practice Keith has sat down to watch. Until this point, it hadn’t even occurred to him to go to an actual game.

Matt doesn’t seem to be bothered by the deadpan delivery of that statement, nor by Keith’s errant attention. “That’s exactly it!”

Keith blinks. Shiro catches a pop fly. Beside him, Matt starts to settle like a volcano canceling its impending eruption. 

“But you don’t care about any of that, do you?”

“Huh?”

“Shiro sure looks great in that uniform.”

Shiro. Big hands. Dashing smile. Plays the piano like he means it and doesn’t mind getting a little dirty at baseball practice. 

“I’m sorry. . . _what?_ ” Keith stammers. He only hopes his cheeks aren’t lit up like a Christmas tree, that it’s just the heat of the day burning up his skin instead. 

Shrugging, Matt grins over at him. “Just seeing if you’re paying any attention to me at all.”

“I was listening,” he answers a bit petulantly, stabbing his pen tip into his notebook. “Sort of.”

“It’s all right. You’re not the first to tune me out when confronted with the glamor of Takashi Shirogane. . .”

“That’s not -!”

It’s the things that blindside you that make Keith realize this is why no human soul can ever really call itself at peace. Because something always comes flying out of nowhere, wrecking whatever haven you’ve made for yourself like the universe just can’t sit still long enough without reminding you that the only predictable thing in life is its sheer unpredictability. Now, he’s not about to go calling him sitting out here in the field by third base with some guy he barely knows rambling on about monsters and revolution some sort of Eden, but nearly jumping out of his skin as a soccer ball nests itself with missile-precision in his backpack? That’s not exactly how one enters paradise either.

From somewhere behind him, voices rise in shouts, congratulating someone for the sheer dumb luck that landed a soccer ball in his proximity. Keith glances beside him. Matt shrugs again, looking baffled but not nearly as rattled as Keith’s heart feels at the moment. It’s beating far too fast, a hummingbird on amphetamines. That could have been his _head_.

He’d have been seeing double of Shiro for a week.

“Trying to weasel yourself in somewhere now?”

The world goes black. His heart rate drops precipitously; his thoughts swim in zero gravity.

“I was just sitting here,” Keith answers, reaching over to dig the soccer ball out of his backpack. He spins it a few times in his hands, never once looking over at James.

Because just like that, everything falls back to normal. 

“And I decided to join him,” Matt follows up.

James slows to a stop several feet away. The smile he wears is deprecating, a wolf playing at sheep. Never once forgetting that he is still a wolf. He shifts his gaze from Matt to Keith then back to Matt again. “I get it. It’s kinda hard not to feel sorry for the guy.” He holds out his hand to Keith, wiggles his fingers. “That’s real nice of you, Matt. Looking after Shiro’s good deed for the year and all. . .”

Matt doesn’t answer. But Keith knew he didn’t have to, not when he had risen to his feet, soccer ball in hand, slow in the manner of all calculated measures. He knows Matt isn’t stupid, and with one glance down at him, he also knows that Matt has no problem letting someone handle their own business. The slight quirk of his eyebrow, however, tells Keith that he should consider the various routes of action he has before him. Because like it or not, these are still school grounds, even if this is technically after school hours. 

The story Matt might have told his mother though. . .Keith gets the distinct impression it would have rivaled any Greek myth. 

“Give it up already, Keith,” James says, hands still out held, annoyance grating against his words. “Unlike you, some of us are actually trying to make something of our time.”

“That so?” Keith murmurs. He tosses the ball up into the air, well out of James’ reach. 

Frustration wrecks the smile James had been wearing. Taking a step closer, shoulders squaring up, he answers, “Yeah. That’s so.”

Keith nods his head. He looks down at the ball in his hands, shifts his gaze towards the crowd of players along the edge of the soccer field, and listens as Shiro warns someone on the field of a potential stolen base.

“All right then,” he says, tossing the ball high once more. “Go fetch.”

Soccer had never really been his game, but it was popular among the kids of the various desert towns Kolivan had carted him through. They never asked his name, as if knowing he would only be a transient part of their existence, no more than a wisp of a dream, but never stopping them from inviting him to play. He would stand there, watching them, or pretending not to watch them as it usually went, until they all stopped, and then one would beckon to him with some over-exaggerated motion of their arm. The same way people always seem to talk louder the stupider they think you are. Or maybe just that universal language crap that Kolivan sometimes started talking about.

They had taught him how to play. And for an hour or two, Keith got to remember what it felt like to be his own age. 

Right now though? He sends that fucker flying over the heads of the soccer team and watches it roll off into oblivion on the other side of the field. 

If only he could punt James that easily out of existence as well.

“Asshole!” James snarls at him before turning on heel and racing back to his teammates. 

Keith doesn’t resist the urge to flick him off when it washes over him. 

Laughter floods the air. Matt has collapsed on his back, hands pressed over his eyes, his mouth spilling laugh after laugh like someone had shattered the dam holding back his amusement. It continues until Keith feels his cheeks scalding him down to the bone and Matt’s eyes are streaming with tears.

“Are you done yet?”

Matt holds up his index finger, then hiccups several more laughs before wheezing. He continues to hold his hand up, finger pointed, as he rolls back into a sitting position. It’s only after he finishes wiping his eyes that he turns to look at Keith. “You know, killing him with a little kindness might be more effective for your social life.”

“Or I could just punch him.”

“While that would probably put you on the high school bad boy list, which spoiler alert you kinda already are, you do not want to end up in the HHT. Trust me. My mom is no joke when it comes to discipline. She once made Katie peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly mind you, for her school lunches for two weeks straight because she talked several of her classmates out of the best parts of their lunches. And by talk, I mean she basically rigged a computer game in her favor, so she always won her bets against them.”

Keith scrunches up his nose. “Who the hell is Katie now?”

“Oh!” Matt swipes his thumb along the corner of his right eye. A stray tear it would seem, stubbornly clung to his lashes. “Katie is Pidge, my little sister. Most people call her Pidge.”

“Even Shiro?”

“Yeah. He seems rather partial to it, but I think that’s because she begged him to call her that, and well, it’s Shiro. He can never say no to things like that.”

“Huh.” Keith opens his mouth, another question loaded on his tongue when his bookbag starts vibrating. He bends over, retrieves his phone, and unlocks the screen. Sitting in the neat white box that packages all his text messages is a string of sentences from Kolivan:

__

> _Not going to make it home for dinner. Leftovers are in the fridge or use the twenty I gave you this morning to get yourself something. Curfew is nine. All homework must be completed before bed. Text if something comes up. Can’t receive calls._

Maybe he spent too much time staring at his phone, but when he glances up Matt is no longer sitting beside him. Keith looks around him, startled by the sudden absence, only to find him standing over by the chainlink fence that encloses the baseball field. Shiro is there with him, laughing over something in a way that makes Keith shove the worst of his thoughts down into the hole they were trying to climb out of.

Another glance at his phone, then he pockets it and walks over to fence-line as well.

“What’s up?” Shiro asks with a kick of his head towards Keith’s pocket. 

He had been watching him then. The very idea of that sends the blood cartwheeling through Keith’s heart. 

“Nothing. Kolivan’s gonna be late at work. Told me to figure out dinner on my own. . .”

The shift comes suddenly over Shiro, quick as summer lightning. He stands a little taller, tips his head ever so slightly in Keith’s direction, and for one equally as quick moment, seems to debate his next words. Then, they’re out of him, quiet but eager.

“You should come out with us.” 

Keith licks his lips, loops his fingers through several of the links in the fence, and tugs on it experimentally. Naturally, it only gives so far. “Where exactly are you all going?”

“BT’s down on the corner by the bookstore,” answers Shiro.

When Keith finally finds it in himself to look up again, it’s to meet Shiro’s gaze head-on. And there’s a whole lot of soul in those gray eyes, he thinks. With just a touch of hope to them now.

“They serve the best fries in the city!” Matt chimes in. “Hand-cut, fried to perfection. . .and the burgers aren’t half-bad either!”

“That’s that diner place, isn’t it?” Keith kicks at the bottom of the fence, causing it to rattle weakly. “Or well, the one parading as a diner.”

Shiro starts to smile for some reason. Is there something about abusing a fence that sets the guy off? Everyone’s got something. That’s what they say at least. And Keith doesn’t want to stand here thinking that Shiro’s over there smiling because of a chance at dinner with him. 

That’s not. . .

“That would be the place,” Shiro says, still wearing that strange smile that makes Keith want to shove his heart into a closet just so he no longer has to hear it beat so fast or so hard. “Matt may like the fries, but honestly, it’s the malt shakes that you really want to go there for.”

“Says the man addicted to them.”

“They’re that good, Matt!”

Keith feels the corner of his mouth twitch, a partially amused smile trying to make itself known, and him trying just as hard to deny its entire existence. While Matt rolls his eyes at Shiro, the act goes entirely unnoticed because Shiro is still looking at him. 

With that same hope rising like smoke signals in his eyes, dirt dusting his cheeks and sweat streaking through the dirt. And that brilliant white of his smile, like some damn Crest ad, making it near impossible to look away. 

“I’ve got to shower real quick,” Shiro continues, “but after that, we were planning to meet up there. It’s sort of a weekly thing we do, depending on schedules and all.”

“Annnnd I guess we can make room for one more,” Matt adds. He’s doing a shit job of hiding his grin, but Keith thinks that’s the whole point. To let him know that he _knows_ that Keith really wants to say yes. “Those booths are meant to seat four anyway.”

“Who would the fourth person be?”

“My oh-so-charming little sister, of course!”

“So, Pidge?”

Matt sighs. “Yes, Keith. I’m pretty sure you and I had a nice chat about that all of five seconds ago.”

“It was not five seconds!”

“Okay, so not literally. . .”

“You’re coming then?” Shiro breaks in, and he sounds like. . .well, like a vampire who finally got to stand in the sun again. Without all the roasting to death. Just a genuine view of the day-soaked world after lifetimes of missing out on its light. 

That’s all Keith can think, standing there, watching him. And maybe it was all that talk of monsters from before, but right now, Shiro. . .he’s fully human, and for one wretchedly wonderful moment, Keith feels a little more human too.

“I’ve got nothing better to do honestly.”

Shiro takes a step back as a grin breaks over his lips. His hand balls into a fist at his side and he pounds it against his thigh lightly. “Great! That’s. . .okay. . .I need to shower then. And I’ll meet you guys there? That’s. . .ok. . .right?”

Matt shoos his best friend off with a few waves of his hand. “You smell like jock and World Series aspirations. So yes, for the love of my sense of smell and better sensibilities, shower. Leave the firecracker over here to me.”

 _Firecracker?_ Shiro mouths right before he practically trips over himself. He recovers rather gracefully from it all and finally turns to jog off the field and into the sports complex where the lockers and their affiliated showers would reside. Keith is left staring at the afterimage of it all, perfection faltering in its own excitement, even after Matt has turned to gather his bookbag. 

He spins around at the sound of car keys jingling behind him.

“Gather your stuff. We’ll pick up my sister then head to BT’s.”

Keith nods. Everything feels like it’s been doused in molasses - his thoughts, his senses, time itself. A dark sort of sweetness, drawing the seconds to a crawl. He bends to gather up his pens and notebook, and finds his eyes drawn to the last of the lyrics, scrawled perfectly clear in black ink.

_Carry your world  
I'll carry your world…_

_And all your hurt_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter! And as always with this series, there are a few song references for it.  
> The title is a line from [Check Yes Juliet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EZqfRt1w44) by We the Kings, and as Shiro mentions, the song he is playing is "Atlas" by Coldplay. And yes, there are two versions of this song:
> 
>  
> 
> [the original](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh3TokLzzmw)  
> [the piano cover (Spotify)](https://open.spotify.com/track/62bZPspgsGPOFyTRmKY6Ir)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you all again for reading and as usual, you can find me over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)!


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